Hands off Trident, warns defence chief who says it should be 'all or nothing' for nuclear subs

Costly: The The Ministry of Defence could postpone the renewal of the Trident nuclear deterrent for an extra year

Calls to scale back Britain’s nuclear deterrent were condemned by the Chief of the Defence Staff yesterday.

Sir Jock Stirrup said anything less than a like-for-like replacement for the four Trident submarines would not be credible.

He said it would make more sense to scrap the weapons system than to downgrade it.

'We have to have the minimum credible deterrent,’ the Air Chief Marshal told MPs.

‘If you are not going to have that, then you are better off having zero.

‘Spending money on a less than minimum credible deterrent makes, to me, no strategic sense at all.’

Senior Conservatives expressed alarm yesterday after it was revealed the replacement of the UK's Trident nuclear deterrent could be put off until after 2015.

Ministers are considering delaying the planned 2014 date in a bid to reduce short-term costs and head off a pre-general election political row.

The Ministry of Defence said no decisions had yet been taken on the future of the submarine-based missile system - which is the subject of a value-for-money review.

It has been formally excluded from the ongoing strategic defence and security review but the Treasury has made clear the under-pressure Ministry of Defence budget will have to pay for it.

But Conservative MP Bernard Jenkin, a former defence spokesman and chairman of the Commons Public Administration Committee, warned that any delay would be unacceptable to Tories.

He said that putting off the 'main gate' decision - when the main spending on the project begins - would actually increase the long-term costs while casting doubt on the Government's commitment to maintain the nuclear deterrent.

'I don't think this will happen because it would disturb the Conservative Party very, very deeply,' he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

'This would be the maddest decision of them all. It would immediately cast doubt on whether the Government has actually got the resolve to follow through with the programme at all.

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'If you delay, you reopen the whole question, you create uncertainty about how viable our existing deterrent would be and you raise questions about whether we actually resolve to remain the power with global reach and influence throughout the world that we are today.

All or nothing: Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup

'It is about what sort of country you want to be.'

The outgoing head of the armed forces also warned today that the
Government might as well scrap the nuclear deterrent if the
decision is taken to downgrade it.

While Sir Stirrup said any lesser replacement for Trident would not be 'credible', the prospect of a delay was welcomed by former Lib Dem leader Sir Menzies Campbell, who said it would provide an opportunity to look again at other weapons systems.

'We are in the midst of a wholesale defence review. You simply cannot proceed upon assumptions that had their origin in the Cold War,' he said.

'It seems to me that it makes a great deal of sense to allow us a breathing space to consider whether a like-for-like replacement - four boats, 192 warheads - is what is necessary for Britain's defence when we know there are other alternatives available.'

The news comes after it was claimed the huge costs involved may lead to Britain being without a constant nuclear threat for weeks at a time.

David Cameron's spokesman refused to rule out the rumoured plan which would see all four submarines in the nuclear fleet in port at certain times to cut costs.

The Prime Minister had previously given assurances that the deterrent would retain its year-round capabilities.

An influential committee of MPs yesterday warned that a decision to defer Trident's replacement would have 'very significant' consequences for future defence spending.

The
Commons' Defence Select Committee expressed concern that the Strategic
Defence and Security review is being carried out so quickly that
'serious mistakes' will be made.

In port: HMS Trafalgar and its three sister nuclear submarines could be kept off operational duty to save money

This could undermine the Armed Forces, threatening the future defence of the realm, the MPs said.

Forcing
the MoD to foot the bill for updating the Trident nuclear deterrent
would also lead to 'very significant' cuts to the Army, Royal Navy and
RAF, the committee warned.

The
coalition agreement between the Tories and Lib Dems committed the
Government to renewing Trident, but agreed that it should be
scrutinised to ensure it offered value for money.

The deal
allows the Lib Dems - who went into the general election opposing a
like-for-like replacement of the missile system - to 'continue to make
the case for alternatives'.

An MoD spokesman said: 'The
Government remains committed to maintaining the UK's minimum and
credible submarine-based nuclear deterrent, based on the Trident
missile system.

'Within the framework of the Strategic Defence and Security Review,
a review is ongoing to ensure that the renewal of the deterrent
provides value for money.

'It will consider the programme
timetable, numbers of submarines, missiles, missile tubes and warheads,
infrastructure and other support costs, and the industrial supply
chain.

'Once the review has concluded, ministers will discuss and agree the optimum balance of capability and cost.'

Bernie Hamilton, national officer of the Unite union, which has members in the defence industry, said: 'If this report is correct the Tories stand accused of dereliction of duty and a failure to learn from the mistakes their party made in the past. More importantly their failure is threatening thousands of jobs.'

Labour leadership candidate Ed Miliband said: 'I believe the right approach is to include the decision about the replacement of Trident in the strategic defence review, so that we can make an informed decision about how best to maintain the minimum nuclear deterrent that Britain requires.

'I think it's right that we seek to make savings where possible, but this decision by the coalition looks worryingly like a Government putting off the difficult political choices because they are too weak and too divided to take them, rather that showing the leadership and strength to make tough choices in the long-term interests of our country.'

Professor Malcolm Chalmers, of the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), said the significance of putting off the 'main gate' decision to go ahead and start building the new submarines depended on the length of the delay.

Prof Chalmers, a former adviser to Jack Straw and Margaret Beckett when they were foreign secretary, said: 'If what we are talking about is main gate taking place in 2015, then it's not a very significant slippage but the further it goes beyond that, the more significant it will be.

'The delay can be as a result of both political and technical factors.

'The longer you delay the main gate decision, the longer you delay the entry into service of the new generation of submarines.

'When the decision was taken in 2007 to go ahead with the Trident renewal programme, the working assumption was the first submarines had to enter service in 2024 in order to ensure the existing generation of subs retired when they began to become unreliable.'

He said there was 'a little bit of wiggle room' but a longer delay could raise concerns that submarines would have to be kept in service 'longer than is operationally prudent'.

In a paper published in July, Prof Chalmers said that dropping the requirement that there is always at least one nuclear missile submarine on patrol at sea could make 'significant financial savings'.

He argued that the possibility of dropping this requirement could also provide room to delay the 'main gate' decision.